


What Comes After

by R_Cookie



Series: Lokasenna AU [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Cookie/pseuds/R_Cookie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After you live with a person for upwards of twenty months, it becomes inevitable that certain traits become apparent to you. From the way they tend to squeeze the tube of toothpaste from the centre to the way great liberties are taken with any cake recipe that involves chocolate. With Loki, Tony takes it up as a challenge – his personal mission to catalogue any and every single detail about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Comes After

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired loosely by this prompt on the Avengers Kink Meme:
> 
> http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11065.html?thread=24069433#t24069433
> 
> Mostly, this begins the first in hopefully a series of ficlets post-Lokasenna because there've been requests for more and Summer is almost over and I've written so very, very little. To my old readers, hullo again. To new readers, having the context of the original story I'd written might help. In any case - Happy Reading~!
> 
> P.S: Feel free to leave me any prompts. I might like to use them for subsequent chapters :D

After you live with a person for upwards of twenty months, it becomes inevitable that certain traits become apparent to you. From the way they tend to squeeze the tube of toothpaste from the centre to the way great liberties are taken with any cake recipe that involves chocolate. With Loki, Tony takes it up as a challenge – his personal mission to catalogue any and every single detail about him.

 The obvious tics appear first.

 When it comes to _food_ , for instance, Loki possesses the appetite of a bird. But even mention the word 'dessert' and all bets are off. This penchant becomes apparent within the first week of their living together. It probably isn't healthy in the least to substitute a vast portion of one's diet with all things sugary and decadent - God knows Tony's tried to do the responsible thing and withhold access to the pastries until after he watches Loki scuff down a chicken salad with ill grace. _That_ had worked for all of two days before Loki took to glowering at him, then beating him off with a rather sizeable twig that Fenrir had so graciously supplied from the garden. Literally. Bastards.

 So, Tony gives in because he's too old for this kind of crap and maybe Loki's alien constitution handles nutrition and diabetes differently. He figures he'll cross that dodgy bridge when it comes.

 By the time their first pseudo-anniversary rolls around, Tony learns that Loki is one _weird_ cookie. No, he's known that, it was a part of his grand speech that talked Loki into joining the Avengers, after all... but he'd underestimated just _how_ much of a weird cookie Loki really was. _Nothing_ would or could have prepared Tony for the way Loki likes to bathe in frigid, _ice_ -cold water at whatever hour of the day; for the way Loki giggles every time Tony tries to nuke pasta sauce in the microwave only to leave it in too long , causing the interior to be decorated in a violent splatter of tomatoes and basil. Tony would never, not even in a million years, have guessed that Loki would take to collecting Beanie Babies. It is still, quite frankly, a concept that frazzles his brain. But that's a whole other story entirely.

 What Tony finds the greatest interest in, however, is the body language that Loki tries so hard not to give away. There is always a little puff of pride for every quirk Tony's manages to read correctly.

 To date, he's amassed quite a list of them, keeps every observation and conclusion neatly in his head, thank you very much. And if asked, Tony might not be able to dredge up everything on the spot. Being fluent in the complexity that is Loki was something that had to become second nature, or so Tony's come to understand. But the important ones, the ones Tony always looks out for... Well, now.

 There's the twitch of long, elegant fingers, barely noticeable, and always aborted in an entirely unconscious decision when he's angry, and on the brink of losing his temper. Pushed any further and Loki's brows furrow just so and then sharp, mercurial green eyes would narrow in so brief a warning before the situation went to hell. In such occasions, Tony does what he can to break through to Loki before shit can hit the ceiling. Though, to his credit, ever since _The Incident_ , the god's been making a valiant effort in keeping his temper in check.

 They don't speak of _The Incident_. Not really. Not unless somebody's got a death wish because Loki's expression would crumble and that sat well with neither Thor nor Tony which would thus compel Thor to do something terribly ill-advised. But _The Incident_ comes up every now and then, when they're tucked under the covers of Tony's obnoxiously large bed and it's just one of those slow, quiet nights that sends the cogs in Loki's mind into a silent overdrive. Tony's always ready, though. He's always ready the moment Loki curls his long body, melds it to Tony's side. He's always ready from the first touch of Loki's fingers snaking to the nape of his neck where they press tight against the pulse point of Tony's jugular.

 On those nights, Loki presses impossibly close and kisses his way from Tony's shoulder to the hollow between his collarbones. There's nothing sexual about it, for some reason, merely a tenderness that clenches something in Tony's gut for all the guilt he _knows_ is wrapped and shrouded in Loki's ministrations.

 On those nights, Tony whispers into the silence, over and over, as many times as it takes to have Loki believe that he has Tony's forgiveness. There's always collateral damage in a fight, he'd say. He had been in the way, he should have known better, really. Fenrir was there, he'd saved Tony, taken the brunt of his father's uncontrolled power, everybody's alright, and isn't that the most important thing?

 On those nights, Loki never answers. He only waits for Tony to exhaust his rambling, to finish his piece before rolling himself over, braced on elbows that bracket the other man's head. Then, and only then does he bring their foreheads together, to brush his lips against Tony's temple in the barest whisper of a kiss. And he repents, in the stream of apologies breathed into the space between them, he repents until Tony inches up to cover trembling lips with his own.

 The routine never changes.

 ---

 “My friend, what exactly is that?” Thor's voice greets him as he pulls open the door.

 Tony has to blink. The flicker of something across Loki's face where he stands tall and stiff beside his brother fails to escape his notice. “What?” he hears himself answer intelligently, distracted by that _something_.

 “That which sits atop your head, of course,” Thor answers amiably, if heavily laced with exasperated fondness.

 Tony stares at the blonde with what Loki calls his goldfish face. “It's a hat,” he says, just barely keeping the condescension from his voice. It requires a great deal of effort, truly.

 “I feared that was so,” is Thor's curious reply. Until he turns to his brother and continues, “I would have thought your better sense placed upon Anthony by now.”

 Tony catches it this time – the almost imperceptible wrinkling of Loki's sharp, aquiline nose.

 “Believe you me, brother, I have tried,” Loki drawls. “But he insists on those tiny _mortal_ hats of his. A tragedy, really.”

 Thor gestures widely, arms making arcs above his head, no doubt in vivid description of what might be Loki's helmet if the repeated overhead gestures are anything to go by. Tony doesn't quite follow, tuning out in lieu of focusing on Loki's face. There's that little wrinkling again. Tony watches as Loki follows up with a subtle roll of the eyes before turning to his brother.

 “Indeed. I had half a mind to turn that ridiculous excuse for a hat into something like his ancestors used - ” _Wrinkle_. “I think they called it a top hat... but even then, really.”

 Thor hums in agreement, turning brilliant blue eyes to the top of Tony's head in serious consideration.

 “I don't like that look, Big Man,” Tony mutters, fingers going instinctively for his flat cap.

 “Don't be silly, Tony,” _Wrinkle._ “I merely wish to try something - ”

 Tony jerks back further into his home, glaring at the step Loki takes. “Not a chance, Bambi. We've been over this. And 'trying' just means I'm gonna lose another perfectly good hat.”

 “ _Anthony_ ,” Loki says, disapproving and gawddammit, Tony wishes he had never discovered this new-found habit of Loki's because there it is again. “I always return your hats.”

 “Never in the original form, though. I'm done having strange, large loops and what have you – that was the eighteenth century, which is, y'know, in the _past_ and it's in the past for a _reason_.”

  _Wrinkle_. Tony swears under his breath. _Wrinkle._

 “My friend, why not allow _me_ to try - ”

 The door closes on the brothers and Tony doesn't feel the least like a jerk. Lunch plans be damned, he'll just pester the kitchen staff for pizza or something.


End file.
